Greg Detre
Sunday, 12 May, 2002
"In all
things, therefore, where we have clear evidence from our ideas, and those
principles of knowledge I have above mentioned, reason is the proper judge; and
revelation, though it may, in consenting with it, confirm its dictates, yet
cannot in such cases invalidate its decrees: nor can we be obliged, where we
have the clear and evident sentience of reason, to quit it for the contrary
opinion, under a pretence that it is matter of faith: which can have no
authority against the plain and clear dictates of reason."
�[Idea] being that term
which, I think, best serves to stand for whatsoever is the object of
understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant by
phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the
mind can be employed about in thinking � (I:i:8)
Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or is the immediate object of
perception, thought, or understanding, I call idea; and the power to
produce any idea in our mind I call a quality of the subject wherein
that power is. (II:viii:8)
���ideas become general, by separating from
them the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may
determine them to this or that particular existence. By this way of abstraction
they are made capable of representing more individuals than one; each of which
having in it a conformity to that abstract idea� (Essay, III iii 11)
The use of words then being made to stand as outward marks of our internal
ideas, and those ideas being taken from particular things, if every particular
idea that we take in should have a distinct name, names must be endless. To
prevent this, the mind makes the particular ideas received from the particular
objects to become general; which is done by considering them as they are in the
mind such appearances, separate from all other existences and the circumstances
of real existence, as time, place, or any other concomitant ideas. This is
called abstraction whereby ideas take from particular beings become
general representatives of all of the same kind, and their names general names,
applicable to whatever exists conformable to such abstract ideas. (II:xi:9)
�These I call original or primary qualities of bodies . .
. solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number.� (II:viii:9)
but these are not powers � rather �they�re intrinsic properties of
things which may be the grounds or bases of powers, and they are �modifications
of matter in the bodies�� (Mackie)
examples of
secondary qualities: �colours, sounds, tastes etc.�
these are identified with powers � they are �nothing in the
objects themselves, but [except] powers to produce various sensations in us by
their primary qualities, i.e. by the bulk, figure, texture and motion of their
insensible parts� (Locke)
this is often misread as saying that the secondary qualities are
not in the objects at all, only �in the mind� �s secondary qualities are meant
by Locke as the powers of things to produce ideas in our minds, not the ideas themselves
No proposition [or idea] can be said to be in the mind which it never
yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of. (I:ii:5)
It would suffice to convince unprejudiced readers
of the falseness of this supposition [innate ideas] if I should only show . . .
how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may attain to all the
knowledge they have without the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive
at certainty without any such original notions and or principles. (I:ii:1)
Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say,
white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be
furnished? .... To this I answer in one word, from experience. (II:i:2)
The great source of most of the ideas we have,
depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I
call sensation. (II:i:3)
By reflection . . . I would be understood to mean
that notice the mind takes of its own operations, and the manner of them.
(II:i:4)
[I]t is plain that the ideas that [perceived
things] produce in the mind enter by the senses simple and unmixed. (II:ii:1)
The mind [takes] notice how one [thing]
comes to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not
before; . . . and [concludes] from what it has constantly observed to have
been, that the like changes will for the future be made in the same things, by
like agents, and by the like ways, . . . and so comes by that idea we call power. (II:xxi:1)
[W]e have no such clear idea at all, and therefore signify nothing by
the word substance, but only an uncertain supposition of we know not
what, i.e., of something whereof we have no particular and distinct positive
idea, which we take to be the substratum, or support, or those ideas we do
know.
[Regarding external existence] I have not that certainty of it that we
strictly call knowledge; though the great likelihood of it puts me past doubt,
and it be reasonable for me to do several things upon the confidence (IV:ix:9)
Lowe on Locke:
a criterion of application = �a principle determining to which
individuals the general term in question is correctly applicable�
a criterion of identity = �a principle determining the conditions
under which one individual to which the term is applicable is the same as
another�
[It is] one thing to be the same substance another to be the same
man, and a third to be the same person, if person, man
and substance are three names standing for different ideas; for such as
is the idea belonging to that name, such must be the identity (II:xxvii:7).
For should the soul of a prince, carrying with it
the consciousness of the prince's past life, enter and inform the body of a
cobbler . . . everyone sees he would be the same person with the prince,
accountable only for the prince's actions: but who would say it's the same man.
(II:xxvii: 15)
[A person] is a thinking intelligent being,
that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same
thinking thing, in different places or times, which it does only by that
consciousness which is inseparable from thinking . . . . (II: xvii:9)
I say . . . our consciousness being interrupted and
we losing the sight of our past selves, doubts are raised whether we are the
same thinking thing, i.e., the same substance or no. (II:xxvii: 10)
�we have an
intuitive knowledge of our own existence, and an internal infallible perception
that we are. In every act of sensation, reasoning, or thinking, we are
conscious to ourselves of our own being; and, in this matter, come not short of
the highest degree of certainty.� (IV:ix:3)
what person stands
for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and
reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in
different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness which is
inseparable from thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it: It being
impossible for any one to perceive, without perceiving that he does perceive.
When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know
that we do so.
since
consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one
to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other
thinking things; in this alone consists personal identity, i.e. the sameness of
a rational being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to
any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is
the same self now it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one
that now reflects on it, that that action was done.
For as far as any
intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the same consciousness
it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has of any present
action: So far it is the same personal selfAnd to punish Socrates waking for
what sleeping Socrates thought, and waking Socrates was never conscious of;
would be no more of right, than to punish one twin for what his brother-twin
did, whereof he knew nothing, because their outsides were so like, that they
could not be distinguished; for such twins have been seen.
suppose I wholly
lose the memory of some parts of my life beyond a possibility of retrieving
them, so that perhaps I shall never be conscious of them againif it be possible
for the same man to have distinct incommunicable consciousness at different
times, it is past doubt the same man would at different times make different
personshuman laws not punishing the mad man for the sober man's actions, nor
the sober man for what the mad man did, thereby making them two personsWhy else
is he punished for the fact he commits when drunk, though he be never
afterwards conscious of it? Human laws punish both, with a justice suitable to
their way of knowledge; because in these cases, they cannot distinguish
certainly what is real, what counterfeitBut in the great day, wherein the
secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think, no one
shall be made to answer for what he knows nothing of; but shall receive his
doom, his conscience accusing or excusing him.
For whatsoever any
substance has thought or done, which I cannot recollect, and by my
consciousness make my own thought and action, it will no more belong to me,
whether a part of me thought or did it, than if it had been thought or done by
any other immaterial being anywhere existing.
Any thing united
to it by a consciousness of former actions, makes also a part of the same self,
which is the same both then and now
Person, as I take
it, is the name for this self. Wherever a man finds what he calls himself,
there I think another may say is the same person. It is a forensick term
appropriating actions and their merit; and so belongs only to intelligent
agents capable of a law, and happiness and misery. This personality extends
itself beyond present existence to what is past, only by consciousness, whereby
it becomes concerned and accountable, owns and imputes to itself past actions,
just upon the same ground, and for the same reason that it does the present.
All which is founded in a concern for happiness, the unavoidable concomitant of
consciousnessFor supposing a man punished now for what he had done in another
life, whereof he could be made to have no consciousness at all, what difference
is there between that punishment and being created miserable?
"receive
according to his doings, the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open."
The sentence shall be justified by the consciousness all persons shall have,
that they themselves, in what bodies soever they appear, or what substances
soever that consciousness adheres to, are the same that committed those
actions, and deserve that punishment for them.
The perception of
ideas being (as I conceive) to the soul, what motion is to the body: Not its
essence, but one of its operations. And therefore, though thinking be supposed
never so much the proper action of the soul, yet it is not necessary to suppose
that it should be always thinking, always in action
�I do not say there is no soul in a man,
because he is not sensible of it in his sleep: But I do say, he cannot think at
any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible of it.
waking man,
whereof the sleeping man is never conscious, has never the least perception. I
ask then, whether Castor and Pollux, thus, with only one soul between them,
which thinks and perceives in one what the other is never conscious of, nor is
concerned for, are not two as distinct persons as Castor and Hercules, or as
Socrates and Plato were?
For I suppose
nobody will make identity of persons to consist in the soul's being united to
the very same numerical particles of matter: For if that be necessary to identity,
it will be impossible, in that constant flux of the particles of our bodies,
that any man should be the same person two days, or two moments together.
To think often,
and never to retain it so much as one moment, is a very useless sort of
thinking
it is altogether
as intelligible to say, that a body is extended without parts, as that any
thing thinks without being conscious of it, or perceiving that it does so.
If they say, that
a man is always conscious to himself of thinking, I ask, how they know it.
Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man's own mind.
�existence is
percipi or percipere� but �the horse is in the stable, the Books are in the
study as before�
"By matter therefore we are to understand an inert, senseless
substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist."
(�9)
immaterialism: �gross
misinterpretation�, �thinking reader�
There was a young man who said, "God
Must think it exceedingly odd,
If he finds that this tree
continues to be,
when there's no one about in the Quad.
REPLY
Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
will continue to be,
Since observed by Yours faithfully,
GOD
But it seems that a word becomes general by being made the sign, not of
an abstract general idea, but of several particular ideas. (�11)
Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, and
consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted on distinct
thing, signified by the name apple. (�1)
This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit,
soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my
ideas but a thing entirely distinct from them wherein they exist, or . . .
whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being
perceived. (�2)
The table I write on, I say, exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if
I were out of my study I should say it existed meaning that if I was in my
study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it.
(�3)
For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things
without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly
unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they
should have any existence out of the minds of thinking things which perceive
them. (�3)
But my conceiving or imagining power does not extend beyond the
possibility of real existence or perception. Hence as it is impossible for me
to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so is it
impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing lor object
distinct from the sensation or perception of it. (�5)
Hence it is plain that the very notion of what is called matter,
or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it. (�9)
In short, let anyone consider those arguments which are thought
manifestly to prove that colours and tastes exist only in the mind, and he
shall find they may with equal force be brought to prove the same thing of
extension, figure, and motion. (�10)
In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all other
qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore, the other sensible qualities
are, there must these be also, to wit in the mind and nowhere else. (�10)
Now why may we not as well argue [as is for heat and cold] that figure
and extension are not patterns or resemblances of qualities existing in matter,
because to the same eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture
at the same station, they appear various, and cannot therefore be images of
anything settled and determinate without the mind. (�14)
Hence it is evident the supposition of external bodies is not necessary
for the producing of our ideas: since it is granted that they are produced
sometimes, and might possibly be produced always, in the same order we see them
in at present. (�19)
But do you not yourself perceive or think of them all the while? This
therefore . . . does not show that you can conceive it possible the objects of
your thought may exist without the mind: to make this out, it is necessary that
you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest
repugnancy. (�23)
All our ideas . . . are visibly inactive; there is nothing of power or
agency included in them. (�24)
[T]he cause of ideas is an incorporeal active substance or spirit. (�26)
A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being: as it perceived ideas,
it is called the understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates
about them, it is called the will. (�27)
Such is the nature of spirit, or that which acts, that it cannot be of
itself perceived but only by the effects which it produceth. (�27)
The ideas of sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of
the imagination; they have likewise a steadiness order and coherence and are
not excited at random, as those which are the effects of human wills often are,
but in a regular series, the admirable connexion whereof sufficiently testifies
the wisdom and benevolence of its Author. (�30)
Now the set rules or established methods wherein the Mind we depend on
excites in us the ideas of sense, are called the laws of nature; and these we
learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas are attended
with such and such other ideas, in the ordinary course of things.. (�30)
That the things I see with my eyes and touch with
my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing
whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call Matter or corporeal
substance. (�35)
[I]t will be objected, that from the foregoing
principles . . . things are every moment annihilated and created anew. (�45)
[T]he matter philosophers contend for is an
incomprehensible somewhat, which hath none of those particular qualities
whereby the bodies falling under our senses are distinguished one from another.
(�47)
We may not conclude that they have no existence,
except only while they are perceived by us, since there may be some other spirit
that perceives them, though we do not. (�48)
[T]he absolute existence of unthinking things are
words without a meaning, or which include a contradiction. (�24)
There is a rerum natura, and the distinction
between realities and chimeras retains its full force. . . . [B]ut then they
both equally exist in the mind, and in that sense they are alike ideas. (�34)
�When we run over
libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take
in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphyics, for instance; let us
ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No.
Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and
existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but
sophistry and illusion�
Custom, then, is
the great guide to human life
James on the
infant: �a great, booming, buzzing confusion�
A wise man
proportions his belief to the evidence
When I shut my
eyes and think of my chamber the ideas I form are the exact representations of
the impressions I felt; nor is there any circumstance of the one which is not
in the other...ideas and impressions appear to always correspond to each other.
"Reason
is...the slave of the passions." The understanding can rationalize any
kind of conduct. "Enlightenment of the understanding makes more clever but
not better."
�if we go any
farther, and ascribe a power or necessary connexion to these objects; this is
what we can never observe in them�
�all inferences
from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the
past ... If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and
that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless,
and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore,
that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to
the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that
resemblance,� (Enquiry??? iv. ii. 32)
If we have
observed that flame and heat 'have always been conjoined together', our
expectation of heat is, he says, 'the necessary result' of seeing the flame.
This expectation is 'a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or
process of the thought and understanding is able either to produce or to
prevent' (ibid. v. i. 38).
There is no such
idea as self. The so-called self proves to be a bundle or collection of
different perceptions [...heat, cold, light...] which succeed each other with
an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.
The great end of
all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented,
sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most
profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies
exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets
not, for a moment, this grand object of his being